Europe rejects U.S. approach to financial crisis, stirring doubts about plan

washington post ^ | 10/15/2011 | By Howard Schneider

[tobyhill]

European officials have rejected key recommendations from the United States and the International Monetary Fund, casting doubt on whether an emerging plan to address the region’s financial crisis will be as broad or fast acting as hoped.

As crisis negotiations continued this weekend, European officials said they had reached general agreement on a response they were confident would restore faith in European banks and government finances.

The detailed plan to be agreed on by European officials next weekend “will be decisive,” French Finance Minister Francois Baroin said Saturday as he concluded a two-day session of finance ministers from the Group of 20 major economic powers.

But the plan excludes both the open-ended use of the European Central Bank as a guarantor of government debt and the swift infusion of public capital into banks that U.S. and IMF officials say could be critical to restoring confidence in the euro region. Both were central elements of the effort to shore up the U.S. financial system three years ago.

“They clearly have more work to do,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said after the meetings adjourned, withholding judgment on whether the European plan will prove convincing.

“It’s all in the details,” he said. “In financial crises, it is more risky to act gradually and incrementally than to act with bold force.”

[freedumb2003]

I wouldn’t take geithner’s advice on how to balance my checkbook, much less on how to do grown-up finances.

[McGavin999]

Their problem will probably be over in less than a year while ours is still ongoing.

[org.whodat]

We already have proof that little Timmy does not know his A from a hole in the ground, and he wants use trillions of us debt, to bail out broke the EU, what's the matter Timmy, France and Britain have found out they cannot steal enough oil out of Libya to bail their rears out. What are we stealing in the Congo

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks tobyhill.

[Iron Munro]

No one but Barack Obama is stupid enough to buy into an
economic/financial get well plan provided by this doofus.

[elpadre]

too bad we can’t reject the Obama plan until next November -

in that regard the Europeans are lucky!!!

[Jack Hammer]

The United States cannot solve its own financial mess, it has no business “advising” anyone in such matters.